Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

MADRID, Spain,
Oct. 10--Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero stressed Wednesday the country was well-prepared for a “battle“ against ETA following a bombing blamed on the armed Basque separatist group.
Zapatero, speaking to the Senate, condemned Tuesday’s car bomb that seriously wounded the bodyguard of a local politician in the city of Bilbao in Spain’s northern Basque Country, AFP said.
He appealed for unity among the political parties to reach “the common objective of all democracies: to see violence disappear, overcome terror, threats and force.“
The country is “very strong and very well-prepared for this battle,“ he said, referring to ETA.
The government blamed ETA for the Bilbao attack, which came just five days after police arrested most of the top members of Batasuna, the group’s banned political wing.
The most senior Batasuna official still at liberty, Pernando Barrena, had termed Thursday’s arrests a “declaration of war“ and warned of a “new cycle of violence“ in Spain.
ETA--listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States--is blamed for the deaths of 819 people during almost four decades of its independence drive for the Basque region which they say includes parts of northern Spain and southwest France.
ETA ended a 15-month-old ceasefire in June, after which the Socialist government--facing a general election in six months--adopted a harder line against it.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Oct. 10--Denmark’s Defense Minister Soeren Gade on Wednesday backed the idea of opening talks with the Taliban guerrillas fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Six years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, its President Hamid Karzai has been asking Taliban militants to meet the government for peace talks.
The UN has said a rising number of Taliban fighters also want peace.
But the Taliban and the factional warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the militant group Hezb-i-Islami, have rejected those offers, saying international troops must first leave the country, AP said.
“If it could spare lives to have the Taliban involved in the political process. It should be tried,“ Gade said in a live television interview. “A condition is that they lay down their arms and stop attacking civilians and NATO forces.“
Denmark has some 600 troops in Afghanistan, most in the volatile Helmand province, where there has been heavy fighting recently.
Six Danish soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since Denmark joined the US-led coalition in 2002.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct. 10--Thailand will send 800 troops to Darfur to join a peacekeeping operation in the war torn region of western Sudan by the end of the year, a government spokesman said Wednesday.
Thailand’s Cabinet approved a plan Tuesday to send one battalion of 800 troops on a one-year mission to the United Nations and African Union joint mission to Darfur by Dec. 31, said government spokesman Chaiya Yimwilai, reported AFP.
The joint mission, called UNAMID, would meet the deadline set by the UN Security Council to replace the African Union force by Dec. 31, he said.
“Thailand is well-equipped to join the UNAMID mission, both in terms of personnel and equipment, in order to support the UN’s role to maintain international peace and security,“ Chaiya said.
The troop deployment will cost Thailand 350 million baht (US$10.2 million) for the first six months, according to a government statement.
The joint UN-AU force is to be comprised of more than 19,000 military personnel, 6,000 police officers and 5,500 civil personnel. The troop-contributing countries include Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Bangladesh, Jordan, Nepal and Thailand.
The joint UN-AU force is meant to replace a beleaguered 7,000-member AU force that has been unable to stop the bloodshed in Darfur.
Sudan agreed to the deployment of the joint force after months of international pressure and painstaking negotiations, which ended with a pledge that it would be predominantly African.
The Darfur conflict began when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan’s government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed--a charge it denies.
More than 200,000 people have been killed in four years of violence.

ALGERS, Algeria,
Oct. 10--Algerian security forces killed the deputy leader of the Maghreb offshoot of Al-Qaeda in a clash in the east of the country, newspapers reported Wednesday.
Zobeir Harkat, who was better known as Sofiane Fassila, was killed Sunday in fighting in the troubled Kabylie region, said the reports, which were not immediately confirmed by authorities, AP said.
Harkat, 32, was considered the main bomb-maker for Al-Qaeda in Maghreb, the former Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) which changed its name last year and pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
Fassila took over as the group’s deputy leader after the arrest of Amar Saifi, also known as Abderrazka el-Para, in 2004. He had been accused of responsibility for a series of suicide bomb attacks in the country this year which have left scores dead.
Newspapers said two other armed Islamists were killed in the same clash on a road from Boghni to Tizi Ouzou, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Algiers.

Sri Lanka Police Special Task Force soldiers march during a passing out parade in Katukurunda, Aug. 5.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Oct. 10--Sri Lanka plans to hike overall defense spending by 20 percent to a record $1.48 billion amid a rise in fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels, according to a bill tabled in parliament on Wednesday.
Defense spending in calendar 2008 would total 166.44 billion rupees ($1.48 billion), up from an estimate of 139.4 billion rupees in 2007, the appropriation bill showed, AFP reported.
The defense spending amounts to nearly a fifth of total government expenditure estimated at 925 billion rupees (8.22 billion rupees) next year, the figures tabled in parliament showed.
The government is due to unveil new revenue proposals on November 7.
Thousands have died and many more have been displaced since the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) launched a campaign for an independent state in 1972. More than 5,500 people have been killed since December 2005, after a 2002 Norwegian brokered truce unraveled.

Taiwan for the first time unveils a home-grown supersonic Hsiung-feng III (Brave Wind) ship-to-ship missile in Taipei, Oct. 10.

TAIPEI, Taiwan,
Oct. 10--Taiwan flexed its military muscles Wednesday, showing off two home-developed missiles in a rare parade seen as a reminder to China that it has the weaponry to defend itself.
In a televised National Day address, President Chen Shui-bian said China’s own military build-up posed a threat to world peace, and urged it to withdraw nearly 1,000 ballistic and cruise missiles aimed at the island, AFP said.
He also insisted Taiwan would continue to press for a referendum on joining the United Nations under its own name.
The military parade--the first in 16 years--came amid growing tensions between China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 after a civil war.
The most eye-catching weapons were the supersonic Hsiung-feng 3 ship-to-ship missile as well as the Tien Kung 3 weaponry, an anti-missile shield being developed under the Anti-Tactical Ballistic Missile (ATBM) project.
The defense ministry also for the first time allowed a glimpse of a locally developed unmanned surveillance plane that could be used to gather battlefield data.
But the island’s first cruise missile, the Hsiung-feng 2E--which because of its range could reach the Chinese mainland--was not on display following reported pressure from Taipei’s main ally Washington.
The missile’s specifications are not available, but analysts say it has a range of at least 600 kilometers (375 miles) and could be launched on land or at sea.
That could bring airports and missile bases in southeastern China, as well as cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong, within striking distance.
Defense Minister Lee said last week the military display was intended as “a kind of effective deterrent so the Chinese communists will be aware Taiwan is tough.“
Amid tight security, US-made F-16 warplanes, French-made Mirage 2000-5s and home-grown fighters flew in formation as the parade got underway.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Oct. 10--The chief of Nepal’s former Maoist rebels threatened that they could bring down the interim government if it does not agree to their demands, including an immediate end to the monarchy, newspapers reported on Wednesday.
It is the strongest warning yet from Prachanda, the Maoist chief, since last week’s talks failed to end the dispute over the monarchy and the rebels’ demand for proportional representation in forthcoming elections, Reuters reported.
It comes a day before the interim parliament is due to discuss the issue of the monarchy in an emergency session.
“If there is disagreement on several issues, the Maoists will launch an agitation and the government may have to be changed,“ Prachanda, who still goes by his nom de guerre, was quoted as saying in the Himalayan Times.
He said if the Maoists were still unhappy after the session then they would “turn the current constitution into a useless piece of paper,“ according to the Kathmandu Post.
He was speaking to reporters in the town of Dipalay in western Nepal.
The Maoists waged a deadly civil war for 10 years in their quest for a republic, during which 13,000 people were killed.
A peace deal was reached last November, and the Maoists locked up their guns and joined a newly formed interim government.
The cornerstone of the deal was that an election be held to form a constituent assembly to map out the political future of the country and decide what to do with King Gyanendra, the country’s unpopular and increasingly impotent monarch.
The election was meant to take place on November 22. But analysts say the Maoists started to worry they might perform poorly.
In the hope of energizing their supporters and differentiating themselves from other parties, they pulled out of the government, demanding an immediate abolition of the monarchy and a full system of proportional representation.
Talks have so far failed. The election has now been postponed indefinitely, although Prachanda said it could take place in April if the deadlock ended, the Kathmandu Post reported on Wednesday.

KINSHASA, ERC, Oct. 10--More than 100 fighters, including 85 rebels, have been killed in clashes in the Nord-Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a top army officer said on Wednesday.
Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, the army’s second in command in the eastern province, said 16 troops and 85 rebels had been killed around Karuba, a town north-east of the provincial capital of Goma.
“We have been in control of Karuba since yesterday,“ he told AFP.
“The enemy has abandoned 85 bodies on the ground ... We lost 16 soldier and have counted 27 injured, including five seriously,“ he added.
Government forces have been fighting followers of a renegade general, Laurent Nkunda around Karuba. A Nkunda spokesman would not give a toll of the group’s casualties.